What is Big Data? - Essay Sample

The term big data had been defined in so many different ways over the past few years. These definitions often bring confusion to the people who have no prior idea about it. A simple definition of big data is that it a collection of numerous data from past sources, both digital and traditional, that are put together as a source of the ongoing discoveries and analysis. Technological advancements have revolutionized ways in which we can collect, store and analyze information.

Big data comprises set of voluminous information that may be classified as unstructured and multi-structured sets of data.

The unstructured data are usually sourced from information that not properly organized in any way. Such data are interpreted through traditional databases in the sense that they are scattered, relies heavily on texts and are voluminous in nature. Examples of the unstructured data include emails, photos, recordings and so much different data.

On the other hand, multi-structured data is the set of data that is resulted from the interactions between computers and humans. Data from web logs are perfect examples of this type of big data. The evolution of multi-structured data is at a faster rate as technology is improved every day.

What is media administration?

With the ever improving interconnectivity among the people, zettabytes of data are generated every day all over the world. Such data are meaningless without proper analysis that transforms raw data or facts into information that are understandable and useful. In order to solve or transform the raw data into useful information, complex tasks such as capturing, input, editing and processing of data is undertaken.

Media administration can, therefore, be defined as the several steps that are related to the tasks in postproduction of information. It involves contributing, monitoring, filtering, updating and management of data information that is stored in systems.

Big data and media administration are interconnected complexly. When bits of information are collected all over and stored in a central system, it is only through media administration that such information becomes useful. When the raw facts, ideas, and knowledge is processed, people are able to use them for research and learning by relating to their ideas to the ones in the centralized place.

The article on chapter 9, The Moose That Roared, gives a brilliant example of how the data collected and media administration works by going through the history of how classification system came to be. From the article, I learned that there are many ideas that people can approach problems. Carolus Linnaeus developed a treatise on plants classification so as to solve the problem of naming plants and other species. His approach ensured that there was a clear mechanism in classification that did not bring confusion. The system was easy to use and understand when one was referring to it. Basically, modern big data and media administration system functions just like Linnaeus, a systematic way of storing data and managing it so as to have easier access and beneficial information

The story on how Jefferson proved, Buffon wrong through his demonstration that the moose in the new world was much larger than the ones in Europe, contrary Buffons assertion that the species degenerates in the New World and that the continent was intrinsically inferior. Jeffersons demonstration showed how that big data and media administration aids the memory of retaining knowledge, creates an understanding of the bits of information collected and enables tracing of information to understand its accuracy.